In his new book, Bounce, William Milberg, takes the game balls used in six popular sports—golf, baseball, football, soccer, tennis, and basketball—and goes deep into their complex and fascinating history, which is also the history of globalization. Each ball tells us unique and vital things about this evolution: the golf ball, for instance, uncovers the dynamics of the first wave of globalization, with colonial powers seeking rubber in the plantations of Africa, Asia, and South America, and the importance of machine technology and innovation. The football, on the other hand, shows how labor unions provided the “countervailing power” that workers needed against growing industrial corporations, prompting steady growth in pay and economic security for the average worker. Globalization has been a series of choices, in other words—by individuals, corporations, and governments. Bounce shows us how the history of these game balls helps us to understand the consequences of those choices and where we might want globalization to go. With Thomas Liess.